Reading clues like a pro: what evidence really tells you

Every clue answers one of three questions

Each piece of evidence tells you either where someone was, when something happened, or what kind of person did it. Label each clue with one of those three before you interpret it.

Sorting clues this way stops you from over-reading. A muddy footprint is a location fact, not a personality profile.

Absences are evidence too

A missing key, an unlocked door that should have been locked, a phone with no calls on the night in question — the thing that is not there is often the loudest clue in the file.

Ask what the scene should contain if the obvious story were true. Whatever is missing is where the real story hides.

Trust physical detail over character detail

Case files describe people in ways that push you toward a suspect: someone is bitter, someone owes money, someone was recently fired. Those are motives, and motives are cheap.

A fibre, a stain, a distance, a time — these cannot be re-narrated. When character detail and physical detail disagree, follow the physical detail.

Match traits to clues, not names to clues

In Nightfile the clues never name the culprit directly, by design. They point at habits, professions, physical traits and access. Your job is to map each clue onto the profile of a person, then find which suspect fits every mapping at once.

One suspect matching three clues beats three suspects matching one clue each.

Re-read the file after your first theory

The second reading is where cases are won. Once you have a theory, every clue reads differently and the detail you skipped as background turns into the one that closes the case.